BGuthrie Photos: MD -- Fort McHenry Natl Monument -- Pictures From Inside Fort

MD -- Fort McHenry Natl Monument -- Pictures From Inside Fort:

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. FTMCHI_100705_015.JPG: Outer Battery: This complex of earthen embankments and masonry structures has been the site of Fort McHenry's heaviest artillery since about 1840. The US Army kept this battery heavily armed during the Civil War to discourage any Confederate attempts to take Baltimore through naval attack or civil insurrection. The large cannon you see today were mounted after the Civil War and are not associated with the famous 1814 bombardment. The big guns remained in service as late as 1912 but were never fired in battle. A network of brick paths will lead you through the outer battery. The twelve Rodman guns still in place are well-preserved examples of coastal artillery dating from the Civil War through the 1890s. Beneath the earthworks are magazines and bombproofs designed to protect ammunition and personnel from enemy fire.
2. FTMCHI_100705_112.JPG: Experimental Cartridges: Funds for developing new weapons decreased after the Civil War, forcing the Army to upgrade the cannon they already had. These three 10-inch Rodman gun tubes were probably made during the 1870s, but their carriages are improved versions developed about 1888. A large hydraulic cylinder returned the gun to its forward position after firing and recoil. Another innovation was the use of bumpers made of a material relatively new to gunnery -- rubber. The automatic return feature eliminated the time-consuming step of cranking the gun back into firing position by hand.
3. FTMCHI_100705_165.JPG: O Say, Can You See? If you had been standing on this rampart with the American gunners on the morning of September 14, 1814, you would have had a close-up view of the dramatic scene Francis Scott Key described in our National Anthem. About two miles downstream, half way to the large Francis Scott Key Bridge visible today, the British fleet had gathered to attack Fort McHenry. A few enemy ships sailed in closer by turns to fire their bombs and rockets. Francis Scott Key watched from the deck of a truce ship at the fleet's rear -- behind the modern bridge. Above and behind you, the famous flag waved gallantly in the breeze. Many doubt that Key could have seen the flag from such a distance. Remember, however, that it was large, and that Key probably watched through a spyglass. Also, the colors of the bright-starred banner could have shone brilliantly when lit by flashing explosives during the overcast night, and later, by the first rays of dawn.
4. FTMCHI_100705_179.JPG: Star-Spangled Banner: By order of the President, the flag of the United States of America flies day and night here at the place where Francis Scott Key saw it when he wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner." Without words, the unfurled flag answers Key's immortal question: "O Say, does that star spangled banner yet wave. O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?" The Star-Spangled Banner that Key saw here after the British bombardment is displayed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. Mary Pickersgill, a Baltimore seamstress, made the huge wool flag in 1813. It measured 30x42 feet. Note that the flag bore 15 stripes -- not 13 -- during the 1795-1818 period. Park rangers fly a full-size nylon replica of the famous flag when weather permits. The large flag will not unfurl in winds of less than 5 mph; winds of 12 mph or more put dangerous stresses on the flagstaff. At least 3 to 5 persons are required to raise and lower the large flag. In addition to the large flag, the 1814 garrison kept a smaller flag (17x25 feet) for stormy weather. Today, park rangers keep flags of several sizes on hand, changing them as weather conditions change. On July 4, 1960, the United States fifty-star flag was officially flown, for the first time anywhere, from the flagstaff here. Today's replica flagstaff was handmade in 1988 from Oregon Douglas-fir. It stands on the same spot as the 1814 original, and is similar in design.
5. FTMCHI_100705_188.JPG: Mortars vs Guns: When the British attacked in 1814, guns of this type -- but larger -- were fired from the ramparts and the water batteries near the riverbank. They kept the British warships from entering Baltimore Harbor, but they could not shoot far enough to hit the vessels that were hurling bombs at the fort. According to the American Commander's reports, the British fired more than 1,500 bombs. These are the famous "bombs bursting in air" mentioned in our National Anthem. Displayed here are two which failed to explode. Fortunately, there were many duds and many misses, and the fort suffered little damage. The gun tubes you see here are not known to have been at Fort McHenry during the bombardment. They are, however, authentic pieces from the War of 1812 period.
6. FTMCHI_100705_191.JPG: Mortars vs Guns: When the British attacked in 1814, guns of this type -- but larger -- were fired from the ramparts and the water batteries near the riverbank. They kept the British warships from entering Baltimore Harbor, but they could not shoot far enough to hit the vessels that were hurling bombs at the fort. According to the American Commander's reports, the British fired more than 1,500 bombs. These are the famous "bombs bursting in air" mentioned in our National Anthem. Displayed here are two which failed to explode. Fortunately, there were many duds and many misses, and the fort suffered little damage. The gun tubes you see here are not known to have been at Fort McHenry during the bombardment. They are, however, authentic pieces from the War of 1812 period.
7. FTMCHI_100705_193.JPG: Fired by the British naval forces during the bombardment of this fort Sept. 13-14, 1814 When by the light of "bombs bursting in air" the national anthem -- the Star Spangled Banner -- had its birth.
8. FTMCHI_100705_217.JPG: Cistern and Well: Fort McHenry was surrounded by water, but none of it was fit to drink. In the early years, soldiers rowed into Baltimore to fill casks with fresh well water. They also collected rainwater from the barracks' roofs in a cistern located in this corner of the star fort. When a British attack seemed imminent in 1813, the Army began work on a more reliable water source. On the parade behind you they dug a well. The shaft descended 96 feet (29m) through layers of earth, mud, foul water, and clay until it reached pure water. Today the cistern and well are no longer visible, but archaeological investigations in 1978 have confirmed their existence.
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AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.) I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
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2010 photos: My office at the main Commerce Department building closed in October and I was shifted out to the Bureau of the Census in Suitland Maryland. It's good to have a job of course but that killed being able to see basically any cultural events during the day. There's basically nothing of interest that you can see around the Census building. Overnight trips this year: Civil War Trust conferences (Lexington, KY and Nashville, TN), and my 5th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including Los Angeles). Equipment this year: I mostly used the Fuji S100fs until the third one broke and I started sending them back for repairs. Then I used either the Fuji S200EHX or the Nikon D90 until I got the S100fs ones repaired. At the end of the year I bought a Nikon D5000 but I returned it pretty quickly. Number of photos taken this year: about 395,000..
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